The Unpampered Stamper

Snappy Birthday!

Hello! I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend! I wanted to share with you a festive little box card that I created for my Uncle who lives near the beach. I just love box cards because they are full of dimension! For this card, I used my Box Card Die Set by The Stamps of Life for the base. As in one of my previous cards, I removed the front flap of the box card and die-cut a "window" into the front base. I then glued a piece of clear acetate inside the window so that my card would not collapse on itself when folded. I then added some patterned paper to the sides and flaps and water-colored on some water-color paper with blue inks for my waves and sky. I used the "Making Waves" die set (now retired) by My Favorite Things for the ocean waves.

The cute beach scenery and characters came from Lawn Fawn's "Life is Good" and "Critters in the Sea" stamp sets. I used my Copics to color all of my characters and also used their coordinating dies to cut them out. Although you may not be able to see it in the photos, I also added some Clear Wink of Stella to add some sparkle to my sandcastle, bucket of sand, seahorse and starfish. The cute little conch shell that the crab is holding is from the Elizabeth Craft large shells die set.

I love adding "pop-up" objects to the flaps of my box cards. And as I have mentioned in previous posts, it still folds very simply with a small trick.

As you can see in this photo above, I have mounted my objects on the side flaps with simple pieces of cardstock that are scored and able to fold down.

Once the "pop-up" items are folded down, I can then fold the rest of my card so that it can fit easily into an A2 envelope (see photo below). I usually make my own envelopes and add a little bit more depth to them in order to protect my card when shipping.

Thank you all for dropping by! If you liked this card and want some more crafty inspiration, don't forget to check out my INSTAGRAM feed!

Wishing you all a lovely day!

♥ Rachel

How Do You Like Them Apples?

I was super excited to see the new stamps and dies released by The Stamps of Life this month for their August club set. Apples! Apples can be perfect for pretty much any season and the ideas of what to create with them are endless! The first card that I would like to share with you is a box of red apples. For the apples, I used the apple2stamp stamp set and dies and colored them with copic markers. For the box, I used my Box Card Die Set sold exclusively by The Stamps of Life. I added some rounded stitched white rectangles using white cardstock and Stitched Rounded Rectangle Dies by My Favorite Things. On top of that, I added some blue gingham patterned paper. I wanted to add a little bit of contrast to everything, so I used my branch die by Memory Box and added some small white flowers using my mini flower dies by The Stamps of Life. The most tedious part about making this card was coloring the apples. Of course, I enjoyed that part, but some people do not like to color and if you wanted to create something similar, you could just use the solid apple stamp with ink or just die cut solid colored card stock.

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My next card is a surprise slider card. Ever since I saw last month's card kit video by My Favorite Things, I have been obsessed with surprise slider cards! Initially, I had wanted to have a worm pop out of an apple on this card, but I didn't have any worm stamps and honestly did not feel like drawing my own. As I thought of what other insect etc you might find on an apple, I was reminded of when I was a little girl growing up in Pennsylvania. We had a bunch of crab apple trees in our back yard and one of our weekend chores during summer break was to go out and pick up a bucket or two of those pesky apples off of the ground and put them in our compost pile. I remember wearing these huge, thick gardener gloves because if you weren't careful, you would get stung by a bee that might be hanging out inside one of the apples. My siblings and I absolutely hated that chore but as for a card, a bee on an apple would be cute! So, I went with bees. You simply have to pull the little white tab on the lower right-hand side of the card to see the "surprise".

And once you do, out "fly" two bees with a "Happy Birthday Banner"! So much fun! And honestly, these surprise slider cards are not too difficult to make! I will post a link of the video below by My Favorite Things that will give you a better idea of how to create one. Once again, I used my apple stamps and dies. The bees are from the bee4me stamp set and dies. Now, for the part that you can't see, I used my smaller penny slider die (with some extra cutting with an X-Acto knife) by The Stamps of Life. Many companies have come out with slider dies and almost any one would work or if you don't own one, you could just simply fussy cut it by hand with a craft/X-Acto knife. For the banner, I used the smaller of the two banner dies that come in the Sizzix Alphabet Stamps & Banners Dies Set.

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Lastly, I'd like to share one more card using the same set of apple stamps as above. However, for this card, there was no die-cutting. Just simple stamping, masking and coloring. Masking means that you are going to "mask" or cover a stamped image so that when you stamp on top of it, it looks like the image that you just stamped is behind or next the one that was already there without overlapping it. For instance, in my card here, I stamped most of the leaves before I stamped the apple. I then stamped some leaves on masking paper (or you could use Post-it Super Sticky Full Adhesive Notes) and cut them out by hand as close to the outline as possible. I then placed them exactly on top of the leaf (or leaves) that I wanted to protect to either stamp a leaf "behind" another or to stamp the apple behind the leaves. Once you remove the sticky paper, you only see what was stamped on your actual paper!

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Thank you so much for taking the time to look at my projects today! I love to hear from you! Please feel free to leave any comments or questions!

Sending Hedge Hugs

Hello! I'm a bit late in posting my latest card. Between summer swim lessons and traveling, July had been a very busy month!

I recently returned from a family trip to Pennsylvania where I had the privilege to take one of Stephanie Barnard's classes at the CKC Scrapbooking Convention in Lancaster. She is just as down-to-earth in person as she appears in her videos. Being my first scrapbooking convention, I could not believe how many people attended! If you have never experienced this, I highly recommend it. It's nice to see how many people are interested in paper crafting!

I wanted to create at least one more card using last month's club stamp set from The Stamps of Life. I opted for something with bold patterns and colors. This time, I used the second set of hedgehog stamps and dies from The Stamps of Life called hedgehog2stampTWO and Hedgehog TWO Dies. I just love this little hedgehog holding the flower! These second two stamp and die sets coordinate perfectly with the first two that were released earlier last month. This card was pretty easy to make. I opted to color my hedgehog, log and flowers using my Copics but as I have said previously, if you do not want to color, you can easily stamp your image on colored card stock, die cut your image and be done with it! For the base of my card, I used only 4 of the 22 dies from the Sizzix Royal Stand-ups Card Die Set. The bold black & white floral patterned paper came from the Thanks Collection 6x6 Patterned Paper Pad sold exclusively by The Stamps of Life. The flowers and stems came from The Stamps of Life hippo2stamp stamp set and matching dies. For the center of the flowers, I used Nuvo Crystal Drops in Gloss White. It's difficult to tell in the photo, but the Crystal Drops give a hard, raised appearance to the center of the flowers, giving them more depth and texture. I used a white gel pen to outline some of the detail in the log and used the "Sending Hedge Hugs" Sentiment from the first set of hedgehog dies. Lastly, I added some sprouts of grass using the small grass dies from The Stamps of Life Mailbox Dies.

Once again, thanks for looking! Please feel free to leave me any comments or questions!

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Interactive/Surprise Slider Card

Hello! Today, I wanted to share with you an interactive slider card that I created using some awesome Stamps of Life products. I actually got my inspiration from a new card kit called "Twice The Wishes" that just came out by My Favorite Things. Their video shows you in detail how to create an interactive/surprise card with a layered birthday cake. Once I saw it, I realized that there were so many other things (other than that cute birthday cake) that I could use to create something similar and have the same effect. You can see their video tutorial here.

I decided to use that cute little hedgehog from The Stamps of Life July club stamp set called hedgehog2stamp. I knew that I wanted him popping up out of "something" and I needed to find something in my stash of stamps & dies that he would be able to fit behind. The Triplits Gift Dies by Sizzix were perfect! I die cut two of the large gift shadow dies in black and used them to adhere my colored and patterned cardstock. I glued the base of the gift on one shadow die and the top of the gift on the other. I then cut off the portion I needed on each to then have a gift box that "opened" by having a separate piece for the top and a separate piece for the bottom of the gift. However, when I went to assemble my card, I ran into a small dilemma. Even though my hedgehog did indeed fit behind the base of the gift box, the bottom part of the box was not wide enough to adhere it to my card without also adhering it to the hedgehog. So, I simply hand cut another piece of teal/ocean cardstock to fit behind the base of my gift box so that I could add small strips of 3D foam tape and attach the gift box to my card without also attaching it to my hedgehog. Problem solved!

For the base of my card, I used the Sizzix Greetings Scalloped Edge Drop-ins card die set, created by Stephanie Barnard. The stitched rounded rectangle came from My Favorite Things.

Now, a quick thing to note. You really don't need anything fancy to create a surprise/interactive slider card. I used a banner die that I had to create the strip used to pull open the gift box, but you can simply hand cut a long rectangular piece of cardstock and that would work perfectly! Also, I did use a penny slider die to cut the area behind the gift where the hedgehog would attach, but I only did a partial die cut with it since the die itself would have been too long. I cut the rest of it by hand with my craft knife and probably could have cut the entire thing that way if need be.

Now, I won't go into the details on how to create a surprise/interactive slider card. The video from MFT stamps does a much better job! I have also added the link to this video below.

Thanks so much for looking! Feel free to leave any comments or questions! I love to hear from you! Have a blessed day!

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"Twice The Wishes" Suprprise Slider Card Tutorial by My Favorite Things (Video Tutorial)

Happy Birthday Fishes!

Hello! I hope that everyone is off to having a wonderful weekend! It sure is hot and humid down here in Florida!

I wanted to share a box card that I made last month for my husband's birthday. He's an avid fisherman, so I knew that I wanted to do something related to fishing. Now, you may look at this and think that this is too big and 3-dimensional to be called a "card". But, believe it or not, it actually all collapses to fit into a 5x7 envelope!

For the base (box) of my card, I used my Exclusive Box Card Die Set by The Stamps of Life. I then used one of the smaller dies in the kit to cut out a "window" in the front of the box. It might be hard to tell from the picture, but I added a piece of clear acetate inside the box to cover the window but to still be able to see through into the "lake" or "river". I added some cardstock inked with distress ink as my water and then some grass behind it to show where the land started. The trees were so much fun to make! And very easy. They came from the CottageCutz Rustic Sign & Trees Die Set. I added some distress ink to give them some extra shading and depth. I die cut some fish (by Joy! Crafts) on white cardstock and then colored them with my Copic alcohol markers. I used the Fintastic Friends stamp set by Lawn Fawn for my scenery inside the water. I had initially used the adorable little fish from this set as well, but I later figured that since I was giving this card to my husband, I didn't want the fish to be too "cute". On the sides of the box, I added both a fisherman (also by Joy! Crafts) and my "Happy Birthday Fishes" sentiment from the "You're Fantastic" Stamp Set by My Favorite Things. I believe this stamp set has since been retired but can still be found for sale on different websites. I actually added real fishing line to the fishing pole and attached a small fishing bobber or lure (by Simon Says Stamp) to the end.

Now, to attach both the fisherman and the sentiment, I simply cut a long & thin rectangular piece of mid-weight cardstock and folded both ends (in the same direction) where the piece attaches to the sides of the box in the shape of a small box or square. This enables the piece to fold down easily when pushed. Once that was complete, I then simply attached the fisherman and sentiment to each foldable square. This way, both pieces were now able to fold with the main box card base in order to fit into an envelope and then be popped up again once opened.

Thank you all so much for dropping by! I hope you enjoyed my card today! If you liked this card and want some more crafty inspiration, don't forget to check out my INSTAGRAM feed!

Wishing you all the most wonderful day!

♥ Rachel

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Hedgehog Birthday!

It's hard to believe that we're already almost halfway through the month July! This month's new club stamp set at The Stamps of Life is called hedgehog2stamp and this card is an example I made using both the new stamps and dies. I wanted to make a birthday card for my brother, so I tried to incorporate more masculine colors. I used the Sizzix Friends Forever Step-ups Card Die Set for my base to give the card some dimension. I wanted to make the scene a bit festive with party balloons and a banner, so I stamped, colored and cut some smaller balloons using the Stamps of Life happyBday2you stamp set and the matching dies from the balloons2cut Stamp and Die Set. I cut some small fishtail banner flags using The Stamps of Life banner dies and added some clear glitter to make them sparkle. The "Happy Birthday" banner came from the chalksayings2stamp stamp set and matching banner dies. I stamped and hand cut the party hats from the late4Bday stamp set. And lastly, the adorable cake and present came from the birthday4cookie stamp set and matching dies.
These hedgehogs are just so cute! Hoping to make more cards using this set as time allows!

Thanks for looking! Feel free to leave any comments or questions! I love to hear from you!

More Flower Power!

Hello! I hope everyone had a wonderful Independence Day! Life has been pretty crazy at our house over this past week but I have been able to work on a few cards during the evenings after the kids have gone to bed. I wanted to make a few more cards using last month's awesome club stamp set called flowerpower2fill from The Stamps of Life. In this card above, I used the coordinating Flower Power Dies to cut these cute flowers and then added them to my card base which was cut with the Sizzix Circle #2 Flip-its Card Set dies. I used the coordinating leaf dies that come with the Flower Power Dies and sponged them with some distress ink. The dragonflies came from a mini Stamps of Life Stamp Set that was given to me by a friend. I stamped and then heat embossed four dragonflies on vellum paper and then colored them using some glitter markers. Once dry, I cut them and layered them to give them some added dimension.

In this next card, I used the coordinating patterns4flowerpower stamp set for my sentiment and the Flowers With Stems die set for the little flowers on both the front and inside of the card. For my base, I used the Sizzix Half A2 Card die set created by Stephanie Barnard. Because I wanted to create an overlay instead of using the dies that were included in this set to cut a shape in the center of the card, I simply added some layered cardstock on the front using the Sizzix Regal Framelits die set. I used the Sizzix Leaves Stamps & Dies to cut the brown leaves behind my sentiment and then sponged them with some dark brown distress ink.

As you can see, I used the same dies for the inside of my card but just simply used a different colored felt for the flowers. The sentiment (which is one of my favorites!) came from an exclusive Stamps of Life stamp set called praise4Him. This set is great since it offers eight different and inspiring Bible verses!

In this next card, I again used the Flower Power Dies with both solid and patterned cardstock to create a small patch of "blooming" blue flowers. I love how the blue and yellow contrast with each other! I decided to use a Stand-Up card base so that my flowers would "stand up" once the card was opened. Stephanie Barnard has a number of Stand-Up card die sets and since I only own three of them, I went with the Sizzix Royal Stand-Ups Card Die Set. This set comes with a lot of word dies (which I love) and was perfect for the look I was trying to create. For my sentiment, I used one of Stephanie Barnard's newer products called Thoughtful Words. I just love how most of her word dies also come with a shadow die. It just adds so much to the sentiment!

Here is a view of the outside of the card. It is an A2 sized card and, as you can see, it would fit perfectly into an A2 sized envelope once closed since the flowers lay flat until the card is opened and propped upright. The little blue butterfly also came from that mini Stamps of Life set that was given to me by a friend. Any small butterfly or bug would work, though!

Lastly, I decided to try a new technique on this card. It was my first attempt at trying to stamp and color on a vellum overlay. Although this card didn't come out exactly the way I had envisioned it, I was pretty pleased with the results. I think it would have come out a little bit "cleaner" with a heavier piece (i.e. 40#) of vellum (which I didn't have at the time I created this card). To learn how to try this technique, Jennifer McGuire posted an awesome and very informative video that you can find here. For the flowers, I once again used the Stamps of Life flowerpower2fill stamp set and masked all but the first flower to give them an overlaying look. I colored them with some glitter markers and heat embossed my sentiment with white embossing powder. The beautiful scalloped base card came from the Sizzix Greetings Scalloped Edge Drop-ins die set. I used a rectangle die from some other set to cut out the center of the card and fill it with my vellum piece.

Thanks so much for looking! I love to hear from you! Please feel free to leave any comments or questions!

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